Book Lovers Flock to National Book Festival (photos)
By • September 5, 2017 0 2130
Legions of book lovers descended on the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C., for the 17th annual Library of Congress National Book Festival on Saturday, Sept. 2. After 12 years on the National Mall, the National Book Festival moved indoors in 2014. On this particularly rainy start to the Labor Day weekend, this felt like a good choice.
The event featured more than 100 authors, illustrators and poets for presentations and book signings. The most difficult challenge facing attendees would be which of the nine simultaneous presentations to attend in the span of 10 hours. Many decided to pack the 2,500-seat main stage to hear historian David McCullough, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, popular Wall Street maven Michael Lewis, and New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman.
Other options included special panels on the life of Ernest Hemingway, President John F. Kennedy (on his 100th anniversary) and “Race in America.” Graphic novels were featured on a separate track. The festival once again received wire-to-wire coverage by C-SPAN, both for broadcast and for replay over the web.
View Jeff Malet’s photos from the 17th annual Library of Congress National Book Festival by clicking on the photo icons below.
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- Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden delivers opening remarks. Carla Hayden was sworn in as the 14th Librarian of Congress on September 14, 2016. Hayden is the first woman and the first African American to lead the national library. (photo by Jeff Malet)
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- Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is the second woman and the second African American to hold the office. She was secretary of state in 2005-2009 and national security adviser in 2001-2005 for President George W. Bush. Her most recent book is “Democracy: Stories from the Long Road to Freedom” (photo by Jeff Malet)
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- Author and historian David McCullough is a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award and a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. His newest book is “The American Spirit: Who We Are and What We Stand For.” (photo by Jeff Malet)
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- New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman is a three-time recipient of the Pulitzer Prize – two for his reportage and one for commentary. He is internationally recognized for his writing on the Middle East, foreign affairs and the environment. His new book is “Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist’s Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations”. (photo by Jeff Malet)
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- History writer A. Scott Berg is well-known for the exhaustive research he does for his works. His latest book is “World War I and America: Told by the Americans Who Lived It.” (photo by Jeff Malet)
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- Cartoonist Joe Wos of mazetoons.com presents one of his drawings to Brian Naftal (age 9) of Largo, Md. (photo by Jeff Malet)
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- Ben Macintyre is a columnist and associate editor for The Times of London, a reviewer and a historian. His new book is “Rogue Heroes: The History of the SAS, Britain’s Secret Special Forces Unit That Sabotaged the Nazis and Changed the Nature of War.” Several of his books have been turned into documentaries, and his 2008 biography of the creator of Agent 007, Ian Fleming, marked the centennial of the author’s birth. (photo by Jeff Malet)
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- Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice appears in conversation with philanthropist David Rubenstein. (photo by Jeff Malet)
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- History writer A. Scott Berg is well-known for the exhaustive research he does for his works. His latest book is “World War I and America: Told by the Americans Who Lived It.” (photo by Jeff Malet)
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- Peter Cozzens recently retired as a Foreign Service officer at the State Department after 30 years. While at State, he wrote 17 books on the Civil War and the American West. His new book is “The Earth Is Weeping: The Epic Story of the Indian Wars for the American West.” (photo by Jeff Malet)
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- Most of the books of Michael Lewis have been New York Times best-sellers. He is well-known for his nonfiction accounts of the global financial crisis such as “The Big Short,” “Flash Boys” and “Boomerang.” “Liar’s Poker” is about his own career as a Wall Street bond salesman. His new book is “The Undoing Project: A Friendship that Changed Our Minds”, about one of the great (and most unlikely) partnerships in the history of science. (photo by Jeff Malet)
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- Peter Slen of C-SPAN (left) interviews astronaut Leland Melvin for Book TV. (photo by Jeff Malet)
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- Ave (age 11) and Fiona (7) Jones of Arlington Va. hold their books just signed by author Melissa de la Cruz. (photo by Jeff Malet)
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- Kinsale Hueston, a Navajo student from St. Margaret’s Episcopal School in California, a National Student Poet. (photo by Jeff Malet)
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- The 2,500-seat main stage hall is filled to capacity as author and historian David McCullough appears at the 17th annual Library of Congress National Book Festival. Photo by Jeff Malet.
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- Rocco Stanno helps kids gather information about New York State at the Pavilion of the States (photo by Jeff Malet)
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- Sidney Blumenthal has been an aide to President Bill Clinton and was an adviser to Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. He has also been on the staff of the Clinton Foundation. He has worked for The New Yorker, The Washington Post and The New Republic, and he was Washington bureau chief for Salon magazine. Blumenthal has just published “Wrestling With His Angel: The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II, 1849-1856”, in which he shows how Lincoln led the way for a new Republican Party and how he became its first president. (photo by Jeff Malet)
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- Kids grab salt water taffy and gather information on New Jersey at the Pavilion of the States. (photo by Jeff Malet)
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- Children’s author Jack Gantos teaches kids. The creator of such beloved characters as Rotten Ralph and Joey Pigza, Jack Gantos received the Newbery Medal in 2012 for “Dead End in Norvelt,” which features a 12-year-old boy named Jack Gantos. Gantos’ latest work for children is the practical guide “Writing Radar: Using Your Journal to Snoop Out and Craft Great Stories.” (photo by Jeff Malet)
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- Brenna Bower of Falls Church Va. shows off her art work at the 17th annual Library of Congress National Book Festival. (photo by Jeff Malet)
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- New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman is a three-time recipient of the Pulitzer Prize – two for his reportage and one for commentary. He is internationally recognized for his writing on the Middle East, foreign affairs and the environment. His new book is “Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist’s Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations”. (photo by Jeff Malet)
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- J.D. Vance (left) appears in conversation with philanthropist David Rubenstein. The author of the New York Times No. 1 best-selling “Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis”, J.D. Vance was raised in the southwestern Ohio city of Middletown and the Appalachian town of Jackson, Kentucky. Vance writes sympathetically about the poverty and low wages in the places where he grew up while simultaneously raising questions about personal responsibility. (photo by Jeff Malet)
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- Carla Hayden was sworn in as the 14th Librarian of Congress on September 14, 2016. Hayden is the first woman and the first African American to lead the national library. (photo by Jeff Malet)
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- Astronaut Leland Melvin poses with Annie Smith (age 12) and Eli Swope (age 12) of Hanover Pa. Both kids have a strong interest in careers in science and space travel. Melvin is an engineer, NASA astronaut and former wide receiver for the Detroit Lions. He served on the space shuttle Atlantis as a mission specialist and was named the NASA associate administrator for education in October 2010. His new book “Chasing Space: An Astronaut’s Story of Grit, Grace and Second Chances”, tells his personal story of perseverance, dedication and taking whatever life throws at you. (photo by Jeff Malet)
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- Matthew Desmond is the John L. Loeb associate professor of the social sciences at Harvard University. His research focuses on urban sociology, race and ethnicity, poverty, social theory, organizations and work, and ethnography. Desmond was awarded a MacArthur grant in 2015 for his work on poverty. He is the author of four books, including the award-winning “On the Fireline.” His most recent book, “Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City” is the winner of the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction. (photo by Jeff Malet)
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- Lincoln Peirce is a cartoonist and writer from Portland, Maine. His comic strip, “Big Nate,” was syndicated in 1991 and currently appears in over 400 newspapers, including The Washington Post. (photo by Jeff Malet)
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- Ernest Hemingway was the focus of a panel of biographers (left to right) Paul Hendrickson, Mary Dearborn, and Nicholas Reynolds. (photo by Jeff Malet)
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- Roz Chast is an award-winning cartoonist whose work has been published in The New Yorker, Scientific American, the Harvard Business Review, Redbook and Mother Jones, among other publications. (photo by Jeff Malet)
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- Ibram X. Kendi (left) and Michael Eric Dyson (right) participate in a conversation on “Race in America” (photo by Jeff Malet)
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- Author Ernest Gaines poses with Noah Massey (age 6) of Upper Marlboro, Md. Ernest Gaines is an award-winning author from Louisiana whose books have sold more than 4 million copies. He is writer-in-residence emeritus at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. In 1993 Gaines received the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship for his lifetime achievements. His eighth novel, “A Lesson Before Dying,” won the National Book Critics Circle Award. His new novella, “The Tragedy of Brady Sims”, tells a story of a man who shoots his own son in a courtroom in a small Louisiana town during the Great Migration. (photo by Jeff Malet)
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- Diana Gabaldon, best-selling author of the popular Outlander serieshas written eight Outlander novels, which have sold more than 28 million copies. Her new book, “Seven Stones to Stand or Fall: A Collection of Outlander Fiction” comprises seven novellas of Outlander fiction, two of which have never been published. (photo by Jeff Malet)
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- Diana Gabaldon, best-selling author of the popular Outlander series, appears with Robert R. Newlen, Deputy Librarian of Congress for Institutional Advancement. (photo by Jeff Malet)
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- Nicholas Reynolds was part of a panel on Ernest Hemingway. Nicholas Reynolds is a historian of modern military history and intelligence. He received his doctorate in history from Oxford University and then joined the Marine Corps in the 1970s, serving as an infantry officer and then as a historian. As a colonel in the reserves, he eventually became officer in charge of field history. When not on duty with the Marine Corps, he served as a CIA officer, most recently as the historian for the CIA Museum. He currently teaches as an adjunct professor for Johns Hopkins University. Prompted by clues he uncovered as historian for the CIA Museum, his book “Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy: Ernest Hemingway’s Secret Adventures, 1935-1961” details the strength of Hemingway’s relationship with espionage and the role it played in his literary work. (photo by Jeff Malet)
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- A panel of authors focused on the legacy of John F. Kennedy in this 100th anniversary year of his birth, with (left to right) Steven Levingston, Kathy McKeon, and Thomas Oliphant, and moderated by Mary Louse Kelly of National Public Radio. (photo by Jeff Malet)
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- Thomas Oliphant was a Washington reporter and columnist for The Boston Globe. He has recently published “The Road to Camelot: Inside JFK’s Five-Year Campaign”, about President Kennedy’s rise to the White House and how close he came to losing the election. (photo by Jeff Malet)
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- Author and historian David McCullough (left) appears in conversation with philanthropist David Rubenstein. (photo by Jeff Malet)
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- Amy Sarig King appears on the Children’s Green Stage. She is an award-winning young adult novelist from Pennsylvania and a faculty member at the Vermont College of Fine Arts writing for children and young adults program. (photo by Jeff Malet)
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- Author and historian David McCullough (left) appears with philanthropist David Rubenstein (center) and Susan K. Siegel (right), Library of Congress Director of Development (right) (photo by Jeff Malet)
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- John A. Farrell (right) hands over a signed book to Fred Ansell,of Chevy Chase Md. Farrell has served as a congressional correspondent for National Journal magazine and has also worked for The Denver Post and The Boston Globe. Farrell’s latest biography is “Richard Nixon: The Life” (photo by Jeff Malet)
